Parents and others are objecting to military recruiters' access to public high school students, and they're encouraging families to "opt out" of such recruitment. Link. Excerpt:
"There's really an effort on the part of adults to get the word out to young people that they need to explore carefully what they're told by the military.... It's not to coerce young people to be antiwar, but to help them make well-informed decisions."
It's natural for parents to be concerned about the prospects of their children going off to war, but some observers say counter-recruiters make outrageous claims that unnecessarily stir up fear. One example: the speculation that the gathering of student data - both locally from schools and nationally in a marketing database - could be the first step toward reinstating a draft.
That's simply unfounded, says James Carafano, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank in Washington. "There is no credible person in the federal government, in the military, or in any academic think tank ... who thinks a draft is practical, makes sense, or is necessary. So it's an irrational fear or intentional fearmongering," he says.
Yeah, they say there won't be a draft, and we're inclined to believe them. But we don't see how else the federal government is going to find the troops necessary to reconstruct a half dozen countries, secure our borders, and deal with China. Being the only global policeman takes a lot of manpower, and recruiters are having a hard time finding warm bodies willing to go cold.
We don't have an answer, but maybe it's time to re-consider our role as World Cop.
